Connecticut: Self-Portrait of a State

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The most difficult word in photography is "of." "What's it of?" Unlike some other art forms, which need not reference anything physical at all, photography is inextricably bound to the real world. There must be something in front of the camera, to make an image. There must be an "of."

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But "of" is not "about," and in these images I have sought to create tension between "of" and "about." The "of" is mundane and ordered. The "about" concerns color, form, shadow, the way light falls on the world and makes plain things beautiful. These images are also, as a self-portrait must be, about my way of being in the world: my impatience with the superficially pleasing, my love of solitary contemplation, and my wish, too seldom granted, to see everything as if for the first time.